Almost every time I’ve been up to hike with my father in the North Cascades, there have been roadblocks — mostly weather and wildfire smoke. This trip was to be Dad’s first multi-day backpacking trip since the Boy Scouts and I wanted it to be a smooth reintroduction for him and another solid adventure for us.
We were off to a bumpy start when the sky opened up on our drive and dumped more rain on Joanna and I than we’d seen since the previous winter. My windshield wiper sailed off into the night somewhere on i5 and the late hour meant that the auto parts stores would all be closed. When the rain started coming down even harder, we had to slow to a crawl as we made out way to the rendezvous point: a motel in the mountain town of Darrington. But the largest setback came the next morning, after the three of us had hit the trail. Still wet from the night before, the trail was muddy enough to cause Dad to slip from the trail and tumble 25 feet down a slope through wet vegetation. It was a terrifying moment for everyone. Very thankfully, he was not injured. But I think we all were watching our footing a little more closely after that.
We pressed on to a little campsite just past Long John Mountain, taking in views of Monte Cristo Peak on the way up and spotting two black bears along the way.
The following day was a short jaunt over to Blue Lake. Despite the other campers, Dad wanted to swim naked and nothing I could say could dissuade him. We caught a great sunset over these unfamiliar peaks, and then packed up camp in the morning and climbed the slanted meadows of Johnson Mountain, which looms over Blue Lake. The summit offered million dollar views from all angles. We saw Monte Cristo, Glacier Peak, Sloan Peak, Red Mountain, and countless others.
On the way down, we enjoyed thickets of wild blueberries along Pilot Ridge, and then pulverized our feet with a steep and neverending descent back down to my car parked near the North Sauk River.
At around 22 miles with several long, waterless stretches, this was not a hike that I would recommend to most of the 20 and 30 somethings I know. But my dad made it through with a couple of new holes in his hiking shirt and perhaps some new stories to tell.
